What is the Reggio Emilia approach?

The Reggio Emilia approach fosters children's intellectual development through a systematic focus on symbolic representation. Young children are encourage to explore their environment and express themselves through all of their available "expressive, communicative, and cognitive languages," whether they be words, movement, drawing, painting, building, sculpture, shadow play, collage, dramatic play, or music, to name a few.

Classroom are organised to support a highly collaborative problem-solving approach to learning.

Other important features are the use of small groups in project learning, teach-child continuity, and the community-based management method of governance.

In Reggio Emilia, education is seen as a communal activity and sharing of culture through joint exploration among children and adults who together open topics to speculation and discussion.

- "Hundred languages of children"




Glossary of Reggio Emilia Terms:

Atelier: workshop, or studio, furnished with a variety of resource materials, used by all the children and adults in a school

Atelierista: Teacher trained in art education, in charge of the atelier; supports teachers in curriculum development and documentation

The Reggio children

Reggio Children is a mixed public-private company that the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, along with other interested subjects, decided to establish in 1994 to manage the pedagogical and cultural exchange initiatives that had already been taking place for many years between the municipal early childhood services and a large number of teachers and researchers from all over the world.This new experience was based on an idea originally proposed by Loris Malaguzzi and carried on by a committee of local citizens and educators. Reggio Children's aims and purposes are inspired by the philosophy and values of the

educational project developed and practiced in the Municipal Infant-toddler Centers and Preschools of Reggio Emilia, in order to protect and communicate the wealth of knowledge developed within this experience. The aims of Reggio Children include:

fyfuy to communicate a forceful idea of childhood and of children's rights, potentials, and resources, which are often unrecognized or neglected; to promote studies, research, and experimentation in education, with particular emphasis on children's active, constructive, and creative learning processes; to advance the professionalism and culture of teachers, promoting a greater awareness of the value of collegial work and of meaningful relationships with the children and their families;

to highlight the value of research, observation, interpretation, and documentation of children's knowledge-building and thinking processes; to organize guided visits to educational programs, cultural initiatives, exhibitions, seminars, conferences, professional development courses on the issues of education and the culture of childhood.